is suppose to be doing all of us. thank you all and thank you all our community for support. >> thank you very much. i want to take a few moments to thank all of the organizers tonight. and also, to make sure that we recognize those sponsors who is been quite quite generous with their support for this arab heritage month celebration here in city hall they are p g and e. eleven narrow and bar two. many many of the media outreach worked throughout the community to make sure that people were in union square at the celebrations and if he is activities. (applause). yes mis. >> i was fortunate enough to join the opening of the festival at the castro theater and i can't thank them enough for making us all aware of that work as well and,phd has been a kind

sponsor with the coffee which we all know keeps us awake and ice -- which keeps us well well fed. yes, please give it up. and we all know the work that takes place, here to allow all of us to enjoy the city like this could not be wad without a very strong organizing work of our planning committee and so to all of you i want to say thank you again again and particularly again to shad dee alcarra. who's-who really has been a beakon of energy inside of our office at the mayor's office and neighborhood service and is sweating through our work to make sure we are well on point to have a great celebration here at city hall and so again shad dei thank you very much for your work.

to all of you here tonight from the city family i want to saw thank you for joining us here as well and to really encourage you to take part of in all of the if he istivities that we have to offer here at city hall and for those of you who have an opportunity to tine sign in at the front please do so we can reach you through the mayor's office and neighborhood services center which highlights the many services and if he is activities that occur in san francisco and in our city. and so while we take a pause, for a moment, to bring some more art into our hall, we would like to pause for one more musical enter lewd and to begin with the rest of our program. so thank you all very much.

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(applause). . (applause). . . >> thank you guys so much for that beautiful performance can we give them another round of applause? (applause). all the this time if i can ask mr. joaquin torrez to join us again on stage, joaquin will be introducing the mayor and if i can ask my fellow committee members to also join us on stage. joaquin. >> thank you very much i have to say

as director the mayor's oches of neighborhood services it's refreshing to have a mayor so dedicated to couldn't and it makes my job easier when our people in the community want to feel our elected efficients make our needs and it's in physical presence and i have had the great pleasure of serving under our mayor lee who i would like to make a invite to make a few remarks in honor or of arab heritage month here in san francisco. >> thank you, thank you joaquin, thank you, welcome to our orange city hall. i want to welcome everybody here this fourthth animal america arab month of separation and it's my pleasure to join us here and many of us know that we are

such a lucky city, and we are lucky because people around their world make their way to fraction, find hopey until the city they know that we celebrate our diversity and find strength in the different cultures that pretend together and now, i ask you also to bring me talent from the arab america communities to make me and help me lune run the city. yes, it's incredible. union, i think i can talk about how wonderful diversity is, but we have to get the talent from our communities to represent all of the different thing that we do in the city. and you know, tonight, even though there is something called a baseball game out there, but these wonderful events that we have in the city whether it's america's cup whether it's fleet week, whether it's the 49ers playing or the giants playing, even eventually when we land the

superbowl it all board of trustees all of us, i know that what i'm doing as a mayor and making sure that i support smallbitions in the city is helpful to the america arab community because all of us whether we are chinese americas hal teen know arabs is a starts for us to make our life a little more pleasant and own our business and is make sure that our kids get the best education possible and this is a story about immigrants in our great city. and so why not you have the first chinese mayor inviting immigrant community to really identify the talent in our community and allow me to give them appointments in the various moo commission and the city and i want to announce my newest point to the aging commission because per not getting younger i want you to know doctor sham meret tan knee has been

selected to be on our commission on aging and yes, he is going to help us because there is a lot of you that want to be in our city and you want to make sure that healthy nutritional unusuallile programs and housing are constructing wisely and so i have asked him to step forward and i have asked john paul s ema h a who has been on our treasure island and watch what he is going to do because that is a new part of our city and it's one where if he conducts all of the work that he is going to do as a commissioner on treasure island, he is go to get a lot more treasure island to serve the that you saws of small residents that are a part of it and so we are seeking more fault and please step forward and represent our communities proudly and i'm very willing to work with all of you and on behalf of our city and on behalf of this wonderful celebration

that we have, i call upon on our coaches for the arab heritage celebration, jeff who's here as well as l u b n a to please come on up and receive and just again, thank you very much for your work in the film festival and l u b n a for the wonderful leader ship that you have and devise that you are giving to he to run a vibrant culture center and i hopey that you are able to get a larger cultural center is because the population is going and i hopey that we are able to get you a larger cultural center and get you the resources that you need to run the cultural and art programs and so on behalf of the city l u b n a and jeff this is our arab heritage month celebration proclimation.

(applause). and go giants: enjoy everybody.. >> thank you mr. mayor. (applause). . >> yeah, mayorly thank you very much for the letting us use your house here tonight and letting -- we really appreciate it we know that you ran from the game to get here and so we really appreciate your commitment to our community and we are happy that you are here to celebrate this momentous day with us. we have an awesome community here, we are here to celebrate the awesomeness of our community the dedication of our community and, you know we are hebe here to serve all of

you so really this award should go to everybody here in our community. thank you very much. (applause). and i just want to echo jeff's words and say thank you for having us here today and thank you all for joining us and we look forward to many more arab heritage month celebrations and as well as our bigger community center and you know, through all of the different work that we do in different arab organization, different community organizationings it's about strengthening our community and contributing to the amazing cultural land scam of our city and we are very thankful to here today. >> and thank you shad deand the committee for putting on such a great show and where joaquin. thank you very much also for all of your dedication and work. okay thanks a lot:. >> so please everyone, join

us for the reception, for the following if he is activities we have a fashion show, as well as some food and accommodations and so please follow us into the hall. thank you. ♪ ♪

my name is chris stevens, i'm the new u.s. ambassador to libya. i had the honor to serve as the envoy to the libyan revolution and i was thrilled to watch the libyan people stand up and demand their rights. now i'm excited to return to libya to continue the great work we've started, building a solid

partnership between the united states and libya to help you the libyan people achieve your goals. right now i'm in washington, preparing for my assignment. as i walk around the monuments and memorials commemorating the courageous men and women that made america what it is, i'm reminded we too went through challenging periods, when america was divided by a bitter civil war 150 years ago. president abraham lincoln had the vision to pull us together toward a shared goal of peace and prosperity. growing up in california i didn't know much about the arab world. then after graduating from the university of california at berkeley, i traveled to north africa as peace corps engineer. i worked as an english teacher in morocco two years and quickly grew to love this part of the world. since joining the service i

spent almost my entire career in middle east and africa. one of the things that impressed me were people old enough to have lived and traveled in the united states when we had closer relations. those days are back. we had 1,700 libyans apply for fullbright grants to study in the united states this year, more than any other country in the world. we know that libya is still recovering from an intense period of conflict. there are many courageous libyans who bear the scars of that battle. we are happy we have been able to treat some of your war wounded at u.s. hospitals. we look forward to building partnerships between american and libyan hospitals to help return libya's healthcare system to the extraordinary standards of excellence it once enjoyed. over my shoulder here you can see the u.s. capitol building. in that building 535 elected representatives from every corner of america come together to debate the issues of the day. they are men and women from

every religious, ethnic and family background. i look forward to watching libya develop equally strong institutions of government. education and healthcare are just two of the many areas where i see opportunities for close partnership between the united states and libya. i look forward to exploring those as we work together to build a free democratic prosperous libya. see you soon. good afternoon, everyone. i'm an san francisco mayor ed lee. i want to welcome you from the bay area, from all over the country to san francisco's city hall. today we honor and celebrate ambassador john christopher stevens in this civic celebration of his

life. i thank the stevens family for hosting this celebration here. amongst his many friends, his family, his colleagues from around the world who continue to reremember and celebrate his distinguished life and sacrifice he made for all of us. while we have lost a true hero to our nation, his accomplishments and generosity lives on in all the places he that served, promoting mutual respect and cooperation in international relationships. ambassador stevens is an inspiration to all of us. i did something personally. i texted my daughters who

also grew up in the bay area. they have always reminded me that they love being san franciscans. now as young adults they pride themselves in being world citizens. this is that place. san francisco and the bay area, where we have our attitudes and evolve ourselves to be not only great san francisco and bay area citizens but the inter national status of our city and bay area promote us to be world citizens. i'm pride to be mayor of a city that embraces peace, diversity and leading in equity, acceptance and tolerance. we will always be inter national city that promotes

peace in an effort to make our world a more inclusive place for all. our city will always remember ambassador stevens as a hero who served all americans and we will always remember his vision and leadership. he simply made the world a better place for all of us. thank you for being here today. >> i'm anne stevens, chris's sister. tom, his brother. hillary, our little sister. we want to extend a warm welcome to the family,

friends and many distinguished officials in attendance. thank you for being here. we are honored for your presence. thanks to mayor lee for allowing us to gather and to the protocol and special events team and many organizations and individuals who have offered extraordinary assistance to our family during this difficult time. our parents asked us to speak for the family to talk about growing up with chris. i think overall the greatest thing we can appreciate about chris is how much fun, how clever, how witty he was, how he made us all smile and laugh. i can testify chris was a mischievous little guy from the very beginning, as i was usually the target of his pranks. he set my bassinet on fire with a magnifying mirror.

at 4 he backed me up into a red hot bathroom heater, resulting in a bottom burn and er visit in the middle of the night. at seven he led me off the trail, shooting into the creek in davis. my nickname was chubbs or woman. chris caused me a lot of trouble. so why do i mishim so much? chris was a huge presence in our family, so he lived far away, had a lot of friends, had a very challenging job, he always came home. when he came home for the christmas or wedding or baby showers, he was really there. he wasn't texting. running, playing tennis, eating, drinking, telling stories and extracting our stories. his interest made us each feel very special. he believed in the value of every person's stories.

once he visited me in seattle. i took him to visit an elderly friend in a nursing home. as we waited, chris started wandering, chatting up the other residents in their wheelchairs. soon he came back and said, anne, you have to meet this guy. he is a judge. he has the best history, so interesting. we would get into an elevator in the department store. by the time we got off he would be chatting with the other riders in french. [ laughter] >> where did this come from? i think from our grandfather, chief stevens. known for his wide-eyed optimism he was a popular grass valley high school history teacher, very famous for telling stories and jokes. we would go to the grocery store or coffee shop and he would know everyone there and have a story and joke for each person. chris really took to this. i can picture him in the markets